“I am here; that should be your answer,” he returned, and he smiled back at her.
She did another thing then that was not in accordance with her usual custom. She took his arm deliberately when she knew that a dozen others were waiting near, to have that very honor bestowed upon them—and among them it may be said that Colonel Alexis Turnieff was one—and she said:
“It is my habit to rest for a few moments in the conservatory, after the fatigue of the reception. Take me there, please.”
The others drew backward, away from them. A lane was formed through the throng, and Nick walked through it with Juno clinging to his arm, the envied of every man in the room.
No one could surmise why she had signaled him out for this especial honor. Nick Carter would have found it difficult to have told the reason himself; perhaps she had none, and it was only a whim and impulse.
But nevertheless Nick asked himself if she had in mind the last scene between them, in the parlor of her suite of rooms in Paris, when she had believed that she hypnotized him. The detective caught himself wondering if she had discovered since then the fraud that he had practiced upon her.
“She must have discovered it,” he told himself. “She knows that the orders she gave me when she supposed me to be under the hypnotic spell were not carried out. She knows that Bare-Faced Jimmy was brought back to this country, and tried, and convicted. She must know all of that.”
But these thoughts found no outward expression on the part of the detective. He walked along beside her, with her arm clinging to his, and so they passed among the guests, and at last went through a draped doorway and entered upon a spacious conservatory.
Others were there, to be sure; but there was one seat which was sacred to the hostess, and it was an unwritten law of the house that when she occupied it with another she was not to be disturbed, save by her expressed wish.
She guided the detective toward it, seated herself, and motioned Nick to a place beside her.